Viacom and You Tube the battle gets nasty

21 May 2010

Viacom and You Tube battle hots up

The increasing vexatious and acrimonious battle Viacom and Google/You Tube between picked up pace this week as the documents relied upon in their battle were disclosed. Viacom have sought summary judgment on the basis that:

"the starting point for this motion is this undisputable fact: tens of thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views, were taken unlawfully fiom Viacom's copyrighted works without authorization......fostering and countenancing this piracy were central to YouTube's economic business model. The fundamental issue is whether Defendants are liable for that intentional infringement of copyrights or whether, alternatively, they may hide behind a policy of willful blindness and seek to shift responsibility to clean up their site to victimized content owners like Viacom. Under both common and statutory law, the answer is clear: Defendants are liable for the rampant infringement they have fostered and profited from on YouTube. Once summary judgment is entered, trial will be dramatically shortened, focusing on assessing damages arising from Defendants' policies of hosting and benefiting from massive copyright infringement"

Google of course rejected Viacom's complaint and said as follows "by seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for internet communications, Viacom's complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression. Google and YouTube respect the importance of intellectual property rights, and not only comply with their safe harbor obligations under the DMCA, but go well above and beyond what the law requires".

The disclosure has been brutal. Quotes include those "Google bastards" and, to those companies who asked for their content to be removed from YouTube as "copyright cop assholes". Mmmmm interesting times ahead!

Michael Coyle is a Solicitor Advocate at Lawdit Solicitors a commercial law firm with a strong emphasis on the laws of intellectual property and commercial law. He can be contacted at michael.coyle@lawdit.co.uk or on the following numbers 44 + 23 80 235079